


a bad dream

by neonglitch



Category: SCP Foundation
Genre: Dreams, Gen, Nightmares, Not Beta Read, able technically isn't there but he's still important, i just decided to go all out with the vagueness, no one dies but a corpse is mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28201146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonglitch/pseuds/neonglitch
Summary: Iris has a nightmare.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	a bad dream

You’re standing in a room with white walls, shivering in your jumpsuit. You can’t remember exactly how you got there – although that isn’t surprising. The Foundation is a maze to someone like you, who’s never had the freedom to see much of it. You have a faint memory of grey corridors, harsh bright lights and the sharp awareness of armed guards walking just behind you. 

“105,” a voice says from the intercom. It sounds vaguely familiar, tugging at a memory in the back of your mind. You turn, and the first thing you see is the gold frame of a painting hung on the stark white wall. It’s intricate, that much you can tell, but your eyes are more drawn to the image than the frame. It’s a jumbled mess of colours, some of which form shapes that are almost recognizable. The edges of the painting are a blue so deep you feel like you can fall into it. A sudden surge of dread courses through you.

“105,” The voice says again, and you almost jump. “Enter the painting.”

“I’m sorry, what?” You say, glancing back at the device on the wall. You thought the Foundation was already certain your ability only worked on photographs. You must have misheard-

“Enter the painting.” It repeats, monotone. Not a mistake on your part, then.

You approach the painting as slowly as you think you can get away with. Something about this situation fills you with dread, but you’re already familiar with the mind-numbing boredom of getting your privileges revoked. You’re not willing to spend another week in an empty cell. 

The paint is thick, the shapes practically three-dimensional, when your fingertips brush against it. The canvas shivers and yields slightly under your touch. This – this isn’t supposed to happen.

“Enter the painting.”

You shudder and push your hand into the painting - It feels like plunging your arm into cold water, and you gasp. You try to move back, but the blue surges forwards and wraps around your wrist. All you can do is scream as you’re pulled entirely into the painting, the colours melting together until all that’s left is a terrible blankness. It scorches your eyes; it burns into your brain.

You drift, paint dripping from your mouth in place of words.

When you eventually resurface you’re on your hands and knees, staring down at a blue tiled floor and trying not to be sick. The last of the paint makes droplets of red on the ground. Shaking, you get to your feet. There’s a star-speckled sky above you, but you feel like you’re in a box. After the blue, though, it feels like a blessing.

There are people around you. They’re holding briefcases and wearing clean white lab coats. The few that get near enough to make out a face swerve out of your way moments before crashing into you. They’re Foundation researchers, you think. They look so... calm. Calmer than you’ve felt for a long time. Even underneath the boredom, there has always been a fear that someone somewhere will decide you’re a waste of resources, and one night you’ll go to sleep and not wake up. 

Something new enters your field of vision. You turn around and see a blob of red on the horizon. It gets bigger and bigger, blotting out the night sky, until you realize that it’s something alive. It’s moving. It’s getting closer.

The creature moves fast, and with every stretch of tile it overwhelms more researchers are swept up into it. They float, enveloped in a wave of scarlet, before unseen hands tear them to shreds. For each one that dies, your fear somehow shrinks. You feel… joyful. A vicious kind of catharsis, revenge served in bloodshed. As the red crashes over you, more inviting than that indifferent blue void, you don’t worry for your safety. 

The sun is a ball of yellow paint. The scarlet pools around your feet, making ripples with each step, and you run, reveling in the freedom you haven’t had for years. They’re all gone. You can be Iris again, not 105. It’s – It’s fun. You let out a giggle as you wade through the shallow sea, like a little girl at the beach. It’s the first time you’ve laughed like this for… 

You come to a stop suddenly, feeling the cold water splash against your legs. There’s a silhouette in the distance. It’s a crooked shape, uneven and shambling. You watch as it approaches, the ice in your chest freezing you to the spot. 

It’s him. His eyes are dark, his hair long and wild, and his hands covered in blood. He’s holding a corpse, dragging it behind him like you’d drag a trash bag. You don’t recognize it, but you feel like you should. You drag your gaze away from the corpse and your eyes meet his. 

Finally, you can move. You back away, slowly at first, but then you turn and break into a run. The water shifts and twists beneath your feet contorting into limbs that tear at your face and claw at your eyes one grabs your leg and before you can react you’re falling, falling, falling--

SCP-105 wakes up. Her cell is dark and slightly cold, but it’s familiar. She doesn’t have a watch, but she doesn’t really care what the time is. The remnants of her dream cling to her like cobwebs. Sighing, she pulls back her sheets, gets up and heads over to the bookshelf on the other side of the cell. She doesn’t want to go back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> i love surreal stuff because i can just make up how the world works


End file.
